Portfolio.com has published a lengthy and interesting article on the world of ex CIA agents who are using their “Company” skills to do private-sector spy work for corporations and businesses.

The article discusses numerous current hot topics like pretexting and privacy issues.

From the article –

They’re leaving “the Company” to snoop on your company. How C.I.A. agents are pushing corporate espionage to ominous new extremes.

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The best estimate is that several hundred former intelligence agents now work in corporate espionage, including some who left the C.I.A. during the agency turmoil that followed 9/11. They quickly joined private-investigation firms whose U.S. corporate clients were planning to expand into Russia, China, and other countries with opaque business practices and few public records, and who needed the skinny on international partners or rivals.

These ex-spies apply a higher level of expertise, honed by government service, to the cruder tactics already practiced by private investigators. One such ploy is pretexting—obtaining information by pretending to be somebody else. While private detectives have long posed as freelance reporters or job recruiters to get people to talk, former agents have elevated pretexting to an art.

You can read the Portfolio.com article @ Spy vs. Spy